earticle

영어

Walt Whitman was a poet who established the new epic tradition. Americans, entering a new national era, intuitively felt an immense metamorphosis of expecting a new spirit and literature, diverging from Old World. Whitman tried to cast off Homeric heroic action, replacing it with an inner eye which included spiritual instincts. Thus, a new lyric-epic, personal epic resulted. Whitman adhered to the divine average influenced by Quakerism, Deism and Transcendentalism. He portrayed this divine man in his epic, Leaves of Grass. Thus, his song is the song of himself, of myself, yourself, and song of ourselves. Nothing was greater to one than one's self. With this faith, Whitman opened a new vista of religion in his epic. both uniting and responding to the new 19th century American spirit. At the core of religion, there stood Man. Whitman identified religious consciousness with self-consciousness; religious realization followed an individuals' inner light, by which they could realize their own divine being, seeing the kingdom of God with their own eyes. Whitman wanted to lead man to the moment of self-realization. At that moment, every person's chain would be released and gums from his eyes washed away. He would see his own divinity and have an insight into the secret of God hidden and scattered in the world. Whitman's religious vision indicates the path between reality and the human soul. His affection for and celebration of self and inner light was such that he has come to resemble Christ in our age, Savior, Messianic answerer, and Atlas bearing the earth on his shoulder. He desired for each and every person's purification and rebirth through this vision. This new birth is a homecoming, a return toward God, a moment towards the individual Self, and Soul, an everlasting voyage throughout our life.